Bookshelf

I wrote a short piece about Spelman College for the “Tribes” issue of Tin House. Working with editor, Michelle Wildgen, was a great experience. She respected my own recollection of my experience.

On more than on occasion, I have been asked to write about my life as a black woman from the south, and the editors are ready for a tale of woe– but I tend to write about the pleasure that my life had brought me. Sometimes, the editors actually push me to revise– certainly you can’t enjoy being you!

But I do. I love being a black woman. Yes, there are challenges, and I write about these too, But I feel very blessed to be the person I am and to be a member of such vibrant communities.

For the Tribes Issue, I wrote about being a student at Spelman College, a black woman’s liberal arts college in Atlanta. My class mates will recognize a lot of the details— midnight curfew for freshman and the mad dash for the dorms, intense hometown and dormitory cliques– but at the heart of it all is out special sisterhood. It’s not a PR piece though, I talk about the town-gown tightrope, and our sometimes-fraught relationship with our brothers across the street.

Yesterday the great writer Maya Angelou passed away. I saw the news on facebook and I was felt so sad that I put away my writing, made myself some cocoa, and called up a good friend. It was inevitable, I know. She was 86. She lived a good life. All of that. I read that she had cancelled a speaking engagement a couple of days ago, so she was active all the way to the end. It was a good life, and she enjoyed every moment of it. This is the kind of passing that calls for one of those New Orleans style funerals where you dance instead of weeping, or at least dance while you weep. But still. I had to lay down for a while.

When I think about Maya Angelou, I think about I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. I hardly ever teach it anymore because the students have read it already by the time they get to college. For my black students especially, it is as essential as To Kill A Mocking Bird. And speaking of my students, how many of the have tattoos reading “Phenomenal Woman” or “And Still I Rise.” She was a beloved writer, and a beloved citizen of the community, and a true citizen of the world.

Her life was a magic trick. She did the impossible thing. She looked at the world clear eyed and without sentimentality. She talked about rape back when folks didn’t talk about it. She talked about single motherhood back when “nice girls” didn’t. I read all six volumes of her autobiography when I was probably too young for them. My mother had them and I was a naturally nosy child. It was my first glimpse into womanhood and the life of an artist, the life of a black woman artist. But the impossible thing is that she did it, wrote about it, and continued to live a glorious life. I see the photos of her dancing, singing, wearing dark shades, or a cool hat and I think– Still, she rises. And she makes me believe that it’s possible to honor your vision, tell hard truths, make mistakes, and still be worthy of great love and great joy.

In her captivating debut story collection, Casper-raised author Nina McConigley examines with wit and empathy what it means to be “the wrong kind of Indians living in Wyoming.” Although prejudice and ignorance surface, there are few bad guys in this game of cowboys and Indians, only complicated human beings.

The characters in Cowboys and East Indians must explain themselves frequently — they are never quite what those who encounter them expect. In the story “Dot or Feather,” a foreign exchange student from India tells a Wyoming kid dressed up as a Native American, “There are two kinds of Indians. Some wear dots, others wear feathers. You’re a feather Indian. I wear a dot. – High Country News

Granted, a novel about a dude stuck in an airport isn’t for everybody, but I picked it up quite by accident in the Ucross library and I was sucked in by the voice. Miles is a writer who seems to be unafraid of being himself. This is a book that manages to be sarcastic, but still really vulnerable. I’m digging it.

This one isn’t out yet, but I managed to get my hot little hands on a review copy. The first story, Lizard Man, knocked. my. socks. off. Poisssant has a way of using premises that may make your roll your eyes, and then sneak up on you, knock you over the head and steal your heart. Example with Lizard Man: these two down on their luck dudes go on a roadie because one of the dude’s deadbeat dad has died. When they get there, they try and kidnap this alligator. (I can hear you rolling your eyes as you read this.) But then, as you’re reading it, you’re all of a sudden weeping into your latte, and somehow filled with hope at the same time. Well played, DJP, well played.

Turns out that my muse wasn’t really trying to hang out with me a La Muse. (More on that later.) Instead of writing, I took long walks, drank excellent wine, and read. A lot. I am hoping that all this reading rekindles my love for novel and inspires me to breathe life into my characters. So here’s what’s new on the reading list:

Foreign Gods Inc by Okey Ndibe– It was like the love child of Chinua Achebe and Victor LaValle. A Nigerian ex pat, reduced to being a cabdriver in NYC decides go back home to Nigeria in order to steal the local diety and sell it to collectors. Half satire, half not. Foreign Gods, Inc., tells the story of Ike, a New York-based Nigerian cab driver who sets out to steal the statue of an ancient war deity from his home village and sell it to a New York gallery.

Raw by Mark Haskell Smith– This one reminds me of Erasure by Percival Everett, but without the complication of racial politics. Imagine if one of the dudes from your MFA workshop were to ghostwrite a novel for “The Situation” from Jersey Shore. Then imagine a young woman from that same class, she’s a blogger now, and is determined to unmask the ghost writer. That’s the plot here. Soapy, goofy, but smart fun. Reality TV hunk and People magazine’s “sexiest man alive”, Sepp Gregory goes on a book tour to promote his debut novel, a thinly veiled autobiography. Not that Sepp has actually read the book, he doesn’t have to, he lived it! The book becomes a sensation, a New York Timesbestseller, and, surprisingly, it even gets rave reviews from serious critics. Aside from Harriet Post, that is.

Queen Sugar by Natalie Baszile– Did you read Attica Locke’s The Cutting Season? (You should! It just won the Ernest Gaines Award, but I digress.) Well, Queen Sugar covers similar territory– a black woman ends up running a sugar cane plantation in Louisiana. While Locke’s book centers around a murder, this is more of a family story. It’s a good read lots of plot twists, action, romance. Why exactly Charley Bordelon’s late father left her eight hundred sprawling acres of sugarcane land in rural Louisiana is as mysterious as it was generous. Recognizing this as a chance to start over, Charley and her eleven-year-old daughter, Micah, say good-bye to Los Angeles.

This pretty little corner is my reading look while I am at La Muse. I write during the day and in the evenings, I read to fill the well and relax. Here is what I have been reading lately.

Cartwheel by Jennifer Dubois: This is a novel inspired by the Amanda Knox triall. An American exchange student is accused of murdering her roommate. Dubois seems to really “get” her characters. While it has some issues here and there, I stayed up all night reading it.

In The Blood by Lisa Ugner: Page turner falling into my favorite category of thriller– evil children. Great writing. Twists and turns to the last page. Excellent travel real.

The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan: A bazillion pages. Lots of great characters and many thrilling adventures. Perfect for a cup of tea, or a glass of wine. Very very satisfying story.

“…the first thing a writer must do is love the reader and wish the reader well. The writer must trust the reader to be at least as intelligent as he is. Only in such well wishing and trust, only when the writer feels he is writing a letter to a good friend, only then will the magic happen.

I have done the other thing. I have written bitter and cruel things and even published some them and I regret every one.”

It boggles my mind to think that The Color Purple was published thirty years ago. I was about twelve years old when Celie, Shug, Sophia, and Mister entered the American conversation.

I have heard many black women writers confess that they were adults before they knew that black women could even be writers at all. Right now, I am thinking about how fortunate I am to have never doubted that it as possible for a black woman to be a writer. Like everyone, I had to go through a lot until I realized that I, myself, could be a writer, that I had something to say. But thanks to Alice Walker, I never thought that I was excluded because of who I am.

Watching Alive Walker, I knew that the life of the writer would not be easy. Yes, she was the first black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in fiction and the only one– to this day– to have won both the Pulitzer and the National Book Award. Still, she faced immense criticism for The Color Purple. I have never heard any writer spoken about with the venom with which some African American critics attacked Alice Walker. At the same time, I have never seen anyone stare down the hate with such love, generosity, and bravery.

Alice Walker is a trailblazer. She opened doors for writers who came after, but I want to give her credit for what she did for all of us as readers. The Color Purple is a gift. Those characters touched all of us deeply. They are bright purple patches in our American quilt.